BATAM: Hundreds of residents, dominated by housewives, stormed the Nongsa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) management office in Batam, Riau Islands, on Saturday, one of several such protests in the past two months over a clean water crisis in the area.
The demonstrators took the action after supplies of clean water to residential areas around Nongsa SEZ were cut off, while water still flowed smoothly to data centres inside the SEZ.
“We no longer get water supplies, even for basic sanitation,” one of the protesters said, as seen in videos circulating on social media.
They lambasted the absence of mitigation measures by SEZ management and the city administration and questioned the abundant water supplies for tenants in Nongsa SEZ.
Water crises have occurred not only in Nongsa but also in other residential areas, including Baloi Paradise and Anggrek Permai in Lubuk Baja district.
Water supply was reportedly drastically decreased in the past week before dying out from Saturday until Monday.
Batam Free Trade Zone Authority (BP Batam) deputy for commercial affairs, Denny Tondano, said his office was still investigating what caused the stoppage to residential areas.
“We will immediately check it,” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Commenting on the demo, Nongsa Digital Park (NDP) human resources director Nara Dewa clarified that clean water supplies were not under the SEZ management but were the jurisdiction of BP Batam and water operator PT Air Batam Hilir (ABH).
“Providing clean water for the public is not our job, the responsibility lies with ABH and the drinking water supply system [SPAM],” Nara said.
He said it was difficult to respond to the issue because it was not SEZ management’s duty.
He added that the root cause of the problem was the different supplies for the data centres and residential areas.
He said water for data centres in Nongsa SEZ came from Duriangkang Reservoir using a special pipeline built by BP Batam.
Water supplies for residential areas in Nongsa are from Nongsa Reservoir, which is currently drastically reduced.
“When we applied for a data centre permit, BP Batam promised sufficient water supplies,” Nara said.
“BP Batam calculated that water from Duriangkang Reservoir would be enough, then the pipeline was built from Duriangkang to the data centre.”
As water in Nongsa Reservoir was receding and drying out, clean water supplies to residents were no longer sufficient, he added.
“That is why residents feel they have not been prioritised,” he said.
Nara said residents had staged rallies in Nongsa SEZ several times in the past two months following the drying up of the reservoir.
He added that ABH was working on a new pipeline from Duriangkang to supply residential areas, “they [ABH] said water from Duriangkang Reservoir will flow to residential areas on Tuesday”.
Meanwhile, Nara highlighted the government's aggressiveness in attracting data centres to operate in Batam without sufficient basic infrastructure planning.
“Data centre investment is lucrative for Batam due to its huge size, reaching the regional investment target,” he said.
“However, clean water and electricity supplies were not well prepared. Those two things will become the industry's main problems.”
Server cooling systems at large-scale data centres need about 19 million litres of water per day, equivalent to water for 10,000 to 50,000 residents.
Meanwhile, Batam’s clean water production is only 3,487 litres per second from six reservoirs.
Suyono Saputra of Batam International University’s (UIB) Economy and Business Faculty, told the Post on Aug. 12 that BP Batam and SEZ management should adhere to the “utility first, investment follow” principle, because if infrastructure was not prepared but investment keeps coming, a supply crisis will hit local residents hard.
“Worldwide, data centres always leave questions about supporting infrastructure, especially water and electricity,” he said.
He added that solely relying on raw water sources in Batam was very dangerous.
The long-term solution is to process sea water through desalination, but that requires funding and time.
A water crisis in Batam has long been predicted.
When Ahmad Dahlan served as Batam mayor in 2006-2016, he estimated that Batam’s clean water could only support some 1 million residents.
Data from Batam Population and Civil Registry Agency recorded 1.39 million residents in the second half of 2025.
Batam’s ambition to become national digital investment centre may be under threat if clean water supplies for residents are neglected.
BP Batam recorded at least 16 hyperscale data centre projects in the pipeline, earmarked for Kabil Industrial Estate, Nongsa, Tembesi Industrial Estate and Batam Centre.
Two projects are already operational, five in construction stage, three in construction preparation phase and six projects are still in negotiations.
DayOne has the highest investment of US$12 billion followed by Equator Gate System Batam worth US$5 billion. - Jakarta Post/ANN
